This blog continues the discussion that we began with Epic Journey: The 2008 Elections and American Politics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009).The latest book in this series is Defying the Odds: the 2016 Elections and American Politics.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Cain Developments

After Mr. Anderson flatly denied having leaked the story to Politico — and even denied having discussed the issue back in 2004 — Mr. Block appeared again Thursday on Fox News.

“Until we get all the facts, I’m just going to say that we accept what Mr. Anderson had said. And we want to move on with the campaign,” he said on “America Live.”

Mr. Block added that the Cain campaign was “absolutely thrilled” that Mr. Anderson went on Fox and said that he was not the source of the Politico story.

“Mr. Cain has always had the utmost respect for him,” Mr. Block said. “I’m going to do the same thing that Mr. Anderson has done and move on. Talk about issues and get off of this ‘silliness,’ as he called it, and let’s get on with the campaign.”

A textbook example of walking back a story — or trying to.

Of course, he still has that pesky quote from his boss, Mr. Cain, who told supporters by phone Wednesday evening: “We now know and have been able to trace it back to the Perry campaign that stirred this up, in order to discredit me and slow us down.”

In recent days sources—including associates of the woman and people familiar with operations of the restaurant association—have offered new details of the incident.

The woman in question, roughly 30 years old at the time and working in the National Restaurant Association’s government affairs division, told two people directly at the time that Cain made a sexual overture to her at one of the group’s events, according to the sources familiar with the incident. She was livid and lodged a verbal complaint with an NRA board member that same night, these sources said.

The woman told one of the sources Cain made a suggestion that she felt was overtly sexual in nature and that “she perceived that her job was at risk if she didn’t do it.”